How should Florida spend surplus?

Kingsley Guy: Here are four ways we can make our state much better

September 27, 2013|By Kingsley Guy, By Kingsley Guy

The economic recovery has been the most tepid since before World War II, a testament to the fiscal incompetence of the Obama administration and a dysfunctional Congress. The national unemployment rate still stands at 7.3 percent, an intolerable figure the "status-quo left" is calling the "new normal." Even that figure misrepresents the enormity of the nation's financial mess, since it doesn't factor in discouraged workers who have left the labor force.

There are a few bright spots, however, and the Sunshine State is among them. The housing bust that triggered the Great Recession hit Florida harder than most states, and its unemployment rate soared to among the highest in the nation. Today, Florida's rate is down to 7 percent, which is below the national average.

Under both Democratic and Republican leadership, Florida for the most part has been fiscally responsible and business friendly, which are major reasons the state has bounced back as well as it has. Its bond rating is among the highest in the land, and the current governor and Legislature plan on keeping it that way. Contrast Florida's unemployment situation to California's (8.9 percent) and Illinois' (9.2 percent). The tax-and-spend, union-dominated politicians in the Golden State and the Land of Lincoln are doing their best to drive their states into default and penury.

The slowly improving economic condition of Florida has resulted in an increase in tax revenue, and this year Florida is expected to have an $845 million budget surplus. Gov. Rick Scott wants to use more than half of it to cut taxes and fees, and he's been soliciting citizen input on how to spend the balance. My dueling colleague Stephen L. Goldstein and I have a few, somewhat disparate ideas, which we are broaching today. Here are mine:

1. Use some of the money to help pay the transition costs of a complete shift to a defined contribution, 401(k)-style pension plan for all state employees. Most private employers shifted from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions decades ago because they found the former to be unsustainable. Florida's pension system is in good shape at the moment, but so was Illinois' at one point, and now it is ruinously in the red. State employees deserve wage and benefit packages equal to those offered by quality private-sector businesses, but they don't deserve more than the workers paying the freight.

2. A Florida Department of Education study this year using hard data shows that charter schools in most categories of student achievement score higher than traditional public schools. Yet, charter schools (which are public schools) receive only about 60 percent of the funding of their traditional counterparts. Use some of the budget surplus to better fund charter schools, without shortchanging traditional public schools.

3. Community colleges are vital to workforce training, yet they often are ignored by the Legislature in favor of the state's universities, in particular its flagship institutions. The community colleges deserve better.

4. Nothing is more vital to Florida's economy than it's water resources, but as former Sen. Bob Graham and many others have pointed out, they have been badly neglected in recent years. Use some of the budget surplus to purchase wetlands, help fund water management district projects, and improve pollution controls.